replica
by LuipaardJack
Summary: <html><head></head>The game begins again. He's not sure he can handle it this time. EverymanHYBRID, slash. Chapter 2, up.</html>
1. in an instant

****Warnings:** Slash. Allusions to sexual abuse. Read with caution.**

**Originally uploaded to the EverymanHYBRID fanfiction community on LiveJournal.  
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><p>In an instant, new aspirations are also ahead of me<p>

A scenario of wins and losses unfolds

In the silence, the reflections of ages leave a path

Breathing, I notice the circular motion, and then...

"I Do" - Ilaria Graziano

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><p>He wakes up feeling like someone's trying to hammer a nail through his brainstem.<p>

Vincent flexes his hands, stretches his spine against the back of the chair, and can hear something rattling, cold and heavy and metallic against his wrists as his spine cracks and pops. He stares disinterestedly at the blurry floor - someone has taken his glasses. But he is too tired to care, and it actually comes as something like relief. His eyes don't have to focus as a migraine inches its way up his spine to plant a flag on the crown of his head.

There's heat coming down on his head, from high above. It smells like sunshine. He wonders what happened to Habit and Stephanie and Jeff. If they got away or if they are prisoners too.

Then he hears a familiar step and a door opening and closing and he keeps his gaze focused on the floor to hide the smile tugging at his mouth. He knows those steps, has heard them in his dreams, on the occasion that he has them. What with the nightmares being such an old hat, after all.

_Hello Doctor Corenthal,_ he thinks as another chair scrapes across the floor to settle in front of him. It sounds like they're sitting on concrete. Useful to know.

He keeps himself still and small, the way he discovered when he was young. People reveal more when in the position of power, he has learned. The Captain would have his head too, if he didn't try to gather information. If the Captain was here. If they hadn't argued and fought and separated and -

The minutes pass as the Doctor sits and arranges himself. The handcuffs are heavy on his wrists, and Vincent feels a surge of amusement at the precaution, having a sudden mental image of Habit bound and gagged with heavy chains, the kind found on pirate ships, his dark eyes bright with rage.

And then he doesn't feel anything but nostalgia. There's a lot he would give to be five years old and playing pirates with the Captain again.

"_You'll always be Habit. I won't let them change you!"_

Corenthal lets out a heavy sigh. Vincent doesn't rise to the bait. He knows better by now.

"_You pretended to be kind but behind those smiles you kept everything ambiguous!"_

"I know you're awake, Vinnie."

_Don't call me that,_ he wants to whisper. He does not.

"I can't help you if you don't help me, Vinnie."

Still playing that old game? What a farce.

"Vinnie, I want to help you."

You've already tried that, old fool. Pull the other one, its got bells on it.

Corenthal sighs again. He must be working through his lunch hour, poor man. Poor, stupid, clumsy man and Vincent feels hatred rising in his throat like bile.

_If he tries to tell me that he never meant for any of this to happen, I will kill him. I will kill him from this chair, I'll find a way. For Steph and Jeffrey and Linnie and for us, love._

He scratches his fingers against chair-arms, feels the splinters catching on his skin and nails. It's an old piece of furniture; he could break it like kindling. Perhaps that is what Corenthal wants. He won't put anything past this wretched monster of a man.

Then a shiver runs down his arms, making his hands spasm outwards, jerking at the handcuffs. Corenthal tut-tuts and places a steadying hand on Vincent's left wrist. It's enough to make him go still, the rage tearing through him so suddenly that he's _paralyzed_ with it.

"I am sorry about the restraints Vincent, but you were fighting us quite a bit. We had to tranquilize you, you know that? You didn't used to be this difficult..."

Vincent can't bring himself to pay attention. He's staring fixedly at Corenthal's hand, which remains on his wrist, trying to fight the spinning feeling in his head. The migraine is making its presence known, stabbing painfully into his eyes, playing havoc with his sense of balance. Except he knows it isn't just that, because the hand on him isn't Stephanie or Jeffrey or Habit, it's the hand of a man, who has the power of life or death over him, the power to -

He squeezes his eyes shut. Doctor Corenthal is many things but he is not Reverend Green, or so Vincent hopes because all he can think about is his legs, how he'll be playing right into his game whether he keeps them opened or closed, and he just. Can't.

"The Man doesn't share, Doctor," he says harshly.

The shocked silence is utterly terrific. It also achieves the desired result. Corenthal lets out a hiss and releases his wrist to grab Vincent's chin, forcing him to look up. Vincent glares at the blur of his face, his rage finally winning out over his common sense. He wants Corenthal to know how much he hates him, to know how much pain he's caused in his reckless stupidity.

"How's Linnie?" he asks, because he can't resist needling him. He can hear Corenthal's teeth grinding from here and it fills him with wretched glee.

"_God save us from doctors," Habit said, tossing the flashlight from one hand to another, his teeth flashing white in the moonlight. It felt like coming home._

Corenthal lets go of his face. The visit is over. The door clangs shut and the gray walls and floor begin running together as a wave of pain overwhelms him, but Vincent keeps his back straight until the footsteps fade.

Only when he's certain that the doctor is gone does he let himself slump over and shake from pain and fear, because he is Vincent Lanzilotti-Kinsella, and mountains will rise and fall before he bows to any man.

_Overhead, the sun shines down on a small compound in Ohio. The calendar is marked June 1980. Let the game begin again._


	2. pull your halo down

****Originally uploaded to the EverymanHYBRID fanfiction community on LiveJournal. No warnings to speak of.****

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><p>And not to pull your halo down<p>

Around your neck and tug you to the ground

But I'm more than just a little curious

How you're planning' to go about making' your amends

To the dead.

"The Noose" - A Perfect Circle

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><p><em>It's been six years since that time. Do you remember?<em>

_I think that was the last time any of us trusted someone from the outside. I always wished that I had thought to get something from you - a phone number or an address. Some way that I could communicate with you and thank you for everything. I know we all thanked you, at the tavern, when the storm had ended and it was time for us to leave. But I didn't know what it meant then, what you had done for us._

_We were like stray cats. You didn't have to care, but you did. After everything that's happened to us, I just want you to know, that you made a bigger difference than you might have thought. So, thank you, from all of us._

_I don't know if this will reach you. I don't know if you're still working in Pocono or if you've retired by now. I was eleven years old when I met you, and I doubt I was a good judge of age at the time. Maybe you're retired? Or maybe you're just now seeing off your last kid to college. Did you say if you had children? I don't remember. I'm sorry about that._

_I hope this finds you well, if it finds you at all. Time will tell, I guess. I hope we meet again in the future, so I can say all this to your face._

_The four of us are not living together as a family anymore. We paired off and went our separate ways, so that we couldn't be found so easily. Steph is doing alright with me. We're doing our best to support one another, but it's hard for two adolescents to find legal jobs. (Don't worry, neither of us has had to resort to, well, you know.) At the very least, we have each other to complain to, and to share body heat when the nights get too cold. (Which is happening way too often! I know its February, but it's ridiculous to be this cold! We're thinking of moving as soon as we can, to someplace warm - how does Alabama sound to you? Heh.)_

_I guess that just leads me to the real issue, though. I'm sure you heard about us running away. Is three years a long time? I don't think so, but it feels that way. I can't be sure, though. But then, I'm sure that you noticed when you found us on that faraway day, that our grasp of time and space wasn't exactly what could be called coherent. I'm afraid that hasn't changed even a little bit._

_I really do wish I could be sure that this would reach you, Officer Matten. I guess by the world's standards, I'm a man, or close enough. But I don't feel like an adult. I don't know what to do, how to live my life as best I can, how to take care of Steph as best I can. (Most of the time she's the one taking care of me. I'm grateful for her, I'm so glad she's with me, but I feel awful for being a burden.)_

_I guess the heart of this is, I don't know what passes for "normal" communication between people. I haven't heard from Vince or Evan since June. That was last year. We promised to keep in contact with each other, even if just by postcards. It's January at the time that I'm writing this. No word from them, not a single one._

_I'm worried. I'm worried about them and I'm also worried that I'm overreacting. I wish I could be sure that this letter reaches you Officer Matten, because you're the only person I feel like I can talk to about this._

_If you come across Vince and Evan, will you help them like you did that last time?_

_I promise that they're good people, Officer Matten. Please, don't turn them away. They need help just as much as Steph and me._

_I guess I don't have anything else to talk about. Thank you Officer Matten, for everything. If you get this, Steph and I will probably be long gone from this place. The windows are covered in ice, and we can see each other's breath in the night and I almost couldn't get out the door this morning because it was frozen shut. I don't know where we'll be but anywhere is better than here._

He studied the signature at the bottom of the letter intently. The loop of the _J_ seemed about right for a conscientious seventeen year old boy, as did the rest of the letters, short and indecipherable as they were.

The date in the corner told him that it had been written on January 3rd. It was the 26th of February now.

Matten didn't like the coincidence.

The sudden knock on the door was a welcome distraction from his reverie. His head snapping up and sideways to locate the sharp sound even as his hands hid the letter in the paperwork on his desk. It was only Murray huddling by the door, looking worried - which, admittedly, was not a new expression for him.

"What is it?" Matten asked, trying to keep his voice level. Today was a very special kind of anniversary for him, but the rest the department certainly didn't know why, and it wouldn't be fair to take his tenseness out on them. He raised his eyebrows as Murray struggled to say something, but if any sound came out of the shy man's mouth, it couldn't be heard over the hubbub of the police station beyond the office door.

Matten raised his hand and crooked a finger. Murray stumbled inside, relieved at having a decision made for him. "What's happened, son?" he asked as soon as the man was sitting in front of his desk. It was one of the few perks of being station chief, that he had his own private space to himself.

"We've, um...picked someone up, boss, a kid -"

"Another runaway?"

Murray hesitated. Matten leaned back in his chair. This could take a while.

"Maybe, except...well, there's something strange about him."

"Define 'strange,' if you don't mind."

"He knows us all, boss. Called us all out by name, and said that he would only talk to you. He won't give us anything - not the names of his folks, or where he came from. Just a bunch of nonsense about a doctor and being born from a wish."

He could see the tip of the letter, hidden under a stack of insurance claims. It screamed for his attention, but he forced himself to stare at the tip of the grain on his desk, to keep himself from thinking.

Born from a wish. That was a phrase he had prayed he would never hear again.

"_Whose wish, kiddo?"_

"And he said..." -the words lodged in his throat and it took every ounce of will he had to speak- "...he said he only wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that's about -"

"Murray, what did he say his name was?"

"He said it was 'Habit,' boss. Weird name for a kid, don't you think?"

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><p>Whatever his faults, Jeff had been right in his estimation: three years were not a long time. Neither were six. It hadn't been that long since he had given shelter to a small family of children in Memory Town.<p>

He was also right in that it felt so far away. And now, hell, one those precious children had resurfaced in Pocono.

Matten left the matter alone for a few hours - to give Habit time to stew, and to give himself time to think. This was not a meeting he was looking forward to. But when the clock hit 18:00, it couldn't be put off any longer; and he locked the office behind him and went to visit lock-up.

Habit, he noted with satisfaction, had been separated from the scumbags currently residing in the cells, as per his orders. He had been given a room all to himself, one emptied of furniture, filing cabinets and any other potentially dangerous objects. A guard sat at the door, and Matten was further pleased to see that it was one of their new recruits, which meant that he was terribly keen and not yet easily distracted by food or newspapers.

He almost stood when he saw his superior approaching, but he was stayed by the man's calm look.

"Quiet?" Matten asked.

"Not a sound, sir. I think he fell asleep."

"We'll see." Matten tried the door. It was unlocked, and swung open at his touch. He stepped inside cautiously, the old investigation of the children running away flying through his head. It hadn't taken place in Pennsylvania, but he had still been consulted since he was the only official authority figure to have had contact with the family in recent memory. Many unpleasant questions had been raised in that investigation, implications made, reputations bruised, though not broken.

Many things had been said about the children. He still didn't know if they were true.

"_I promise that they're good people, Officer Matten. Please, don't turn them away."_

It was dark inside. He flicked on the light switch, wondering who had left the boy in the dark. Or maybe he had wanted it that way.

He breathed deep. "Evan? Is that you?"


	3. what am I, if I can't be yours?

**Originally uploaded to the EverymanHYBRID fanfiction community on LiveJournal. No warnings to speak of.**

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><p>So I must let us break free<p>

I can never be what you need

If there was a way through the hurt then I would find it

I'd take the blows, yes, I would fight it

But this is the one impossible dream to live.

_What am I, if I can't be yours?_

"Thanatos ~If I Can't Be Yours~" by MASH

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><p>If there was ever a point in time when you didn't love him, it's too far back for you to remember. You tell this to him as he lies next to you in that abandoned shack, his back to you, his face hidden. It seems terribly important that he know, that this be clear, but you're having a difficult time remembering why.<p>

He doesn't reply at first. Then he looks over his shoulder and says, "You can't ever remember anything important Evan," in that weary voice that cuts straight to your _**core**_

_**except**_ it doesn't happen that way at all. Your friends are dragging you to the car as you vomit up blood, and you can't stop babbling as the pain bubbles in your chest, and something slips out as Jeff fights with driver's side door and Vin folds you into the backseat - "I don't want it like this, it's not fair, you're my -"

"I know," he says, his quiet voice almost swallowed up by Jeff's panicking in the front seat. _I know. I know. I know what you want to say._ "None of this is fair, but we're going to make it right."

His hands have settled against your face. Your breath hitches every time his thumb strokes your cheek, your head is swimming and Vinnie is too close, too close to you, living inside all your walls and defenses as if he's always been there, and you can't remember knowing him and not having that feeling, of feeling-

It would be wrong to say that the two of you aren't happy together. But it's a hard enough fight just to make ends meet and it's even worse without the Doctor and his ugly pills. Sometimes you wish you could be like the other children at Fairmount - the hopeless ones, the ones that the Doctor couldn't reach. They just turned in on themselves and retreated to the safety of their own heads, escaping into the past or their dreams.

You understand. There's so much more color there.

But you have to resist. Time may flow differently for you, may deposit you into days gone by or yet to come (though hardly ever the present) but that doesn't mean that it's right to leave Vincent in the lurch. He needs you just as much as you need him.

He does have one advantage over you, though.

"Just grow it out," you say when you see him snarling at his scruffy reflection in the bathroom mirror. "It makes you look older."

"I don't want to look older!" But he does turn away and directs his scowl at you instead. He's cute when he puffs up like this, and you tell him so, not forgetting to pat him insultingly on the cheek as you speak, rough stubble scratching at your palm. Vin just grabs your hand and smiles as the tension leaves him frame.

But you miss that smile when he isn't with you. It's lonely at the children's home. You are seven years old and your arms still ache from being picked up and dragged and hauled this way and that, and your mouth feels cottony from the stuff they made you swallow.

There's a man standing in front of you. He says his name is Doctor James Corenthal, and that he's here to help you, to make you better.

You ask for your mother. It's the only thing you say for weeks, until the Doctor tells you that your mother isn't coming for you. Then you stop speaking all together and your isolation is complete.

Mother was a brave woman, in her way. She kept you safe the only way she knew how, and if it took four years for her to call the cops on Dad, well, it's not like you can blame her. (Not like the other kids at school or their parents or the teachers, their whispers grinding at the very edges of your hearing, constant constant constant and you want to take up your scissors and cut out their tongues to make them be quiet, to make them stop whispering, you can't stand it when people are _whispering_ about you-) The important part is that she did and after they strapped him into the stretcher and carried him away to the ambulance _("She didn't have drop of blood on her, how did his legs get that cut up?" "Ask the son, he's about tall enough to reach the old man's knees-" "He's just a kid Bruce, don't say things like that!") _she got on her knees and gave you a hug, and that felt nice. You touched her black eye, and she gave you that sad smile (your mother can always smile for you, always) and said, "Looks like it's just you and me, pal."

"Good," you replied, and she hugged you even tighter. You don't feel bad about stabbing your Dad, not when he was hitting Mother like that. Besides, you're almost seven and you have to take care of her.

You don't lose any sleep that night, happy that he's gone, and in the morning Vinnie shakes you awake with _Evan, Evan, wake up, we have to go to Pennsylvania._

"Whu?" You cover your eyes with your arm, trying to blot out the bright light of the lamps. The soft edges of a dream are still clinging to your vision of a woman smiling at you like she was about to cry, and it makes your heart ache. What is Vinnie doing in your bedroom?

_Pennsylvania. Centralia. Jeff wants to go there. You need to wake up._

Centralia. The town of ash, the doctor calls it, with a sad voice. The fires have been burning for as long as you can remember. You don't miss it.

But you do miss Jeff, when he goes with the doctor for a few days. You know, you all know, that the doctor is trying to help (lie lie lie lie lie) and that can take a long time, but Steph. Steph is worried.

"I don't like it," she whispers to you on the second night. "I don't like it, Evan!"

"Why not?" you ask, trying to be patient. You're fourteen right now (who knows how young or old you will be tomorrow) and everything has been changing. You never mind having Stephie in your room, but there's been something different about that lately, that you can't figure out. Whatever it is has been upsetting Vinnie, inciting loud, angry fights between you and him, and that's enough to make you distrust this strangeness that pulls your eyes to the emerging curve of Steph's waist.

You're doing it right now, you realize. Steph doesn't seem to notice how angry you are with yourself for accidently ignoring her. Good.

"Because...I don't like it...when Jeff is away from me..." She's knotting her fingers together. You reach out and grasp her hands before her nails can tear her skin apart. "I worry. I just. I need to take care of him, I need to -" Her teeth bite down on her bottom lip. You think of the room next to yours, who sleeps there, and you understand.

"Do you want to ask the doctor about it?"

"I don't...I don't know if that would be a good idea." With a shake of her head, she gets off the bed, and kisses you goodnight before slipping out into the hall.

The doctor hasn't returned by the next day, and you're glad. Fairmount's ceiling is much more interesting without him pestering you, and you get to sleep more. You drum your heels against the frame of your bed, solemnly examining the ridges on the ceiling. It takes the shape of a rabbit, which you like, and it never changes, which you like even better. You go so many places without ever leaving this little room that it's nice to have something constant.

It's sad that people can't be that constant, though. You won't have anyone to wish you a happy birthday. You wish you could spend it with your mother. But the doctor said she's not coming for you, and you believe him.

You want to see Vinnie. The last time you saw him, he was trying to climb through your window, and you had to pull him over the sill as the soft night chirped and whistled with nocturnal creatures. It was the easiest thing in the world to stroke his head while he sobbed quietly against your chest. It would be easy to say that it was because you felt responsible for him, because you were almost seven and he had only just turned six, but the truth is that-

"You can't ever remember anything important Evan," he says, and he sounds so tired. You swallow hard, because it's true - time slips this way and that, giving you memories you shouldn't have or couldn't have, defying laws and logic, and Vince is the only touchstone you have.

"I remember that much," you croak wearily. "Vinnie-"

"Sorry," he whispers back, "Sorry, sorry, sorry," and reaches out and pulls you close. His hands fit against your back and you can hear his heart beating inside his chest as your head fits under his. Outside the wind howls, and all you want is to stay in this moment, and not be swept away again.

He's gone when you wake up.

And that's when you know.

That was summer. It's February now, and you don't know what to do. You're sitting in an empty familiar room, with a familiar name threatening to leave your lips.

"Evan? Is that you?"

It's a long time before you can say, "Officer Matten?"

He picks you up carefully, and that threatens to tip you back into the river, but you steel yourself and hold on. That's all you've been doing for these past few months: holding on. Praying you'll find Vinnie. There's so much you never said.

"Evan, what are you doing here?"

"I'm. I want to." Your legs buckle, almost giving out entirely. Matten is stronger than you'd thought he would be, for a man in his fifties. "I need to find Vinnie!"

"What happened?"

There's a chair. Not comfortable, but you don't need comfort right now. You grip the edges of the seat. If only the room would stop spinning. "Did you. Hear about when we ran away?"

"Yes." You can taste Matten's hesitation, smell the sound of his voice when he says, "Evan, if this is about -"

"_You don't understand_. We ran away because the doctor, the doctor was doing something -"

"To Jeff."

"To Jeff. It, it was some kind of surgery, he would take him away for days and they'd come back in the middle of the night while we were asleep, but then we wouldn't be allowed to see him, and Stephie was worried so she picked the lock -" You force yourself to stop, breathe, slow down. Babbling won't help anyone. "His legs were all wrong. The doctor, he did something, crippled him almost. And we knew we had to get away or else he'd turn on us next. So we ran."

"And you've been living on your own all this time?"

"Yeah. We split up - we didn't want to attract attention, roaming around together. But now Vin is gone - we went to bed, or, or I thought we did and when I woke up it was December already and he was _gone_."

"Have you been looking all this time?"

"Yeah." It's the easiest answer you can give. You've been searching when you can, when you're in the right time and place.

The gray walls are starting to right themselves. Stability is setting in, though it won't last long. You're starting to remember now - the police station in Memory Town. Officer Matten, the one who helped when you were all very small.

"Was it Doctor Corenthal?"

At last, you look up at his face. It's older, worn with more cares. But it's a familiar face. Constant.

"Who else would it, Officer Matten?"

He believes you. Just like that last time.

And then, you're six years old again, laying in a field with Vinnie's head tucked under your chin while he sobs against your chest: _don't let him get me, don't let him touch me, don't let him hurt me, Habit._

"I won't let him," you promise, stroking his soft hair, the same color as a raven's breast. You look up at The Man, who stands over both of you, his blank face looking at you as his branch-like arms sway in the wind. "You'll help, won't you, Mister?"

He nods. You're glad.


End file.
